Agitation

Agitation is a physical reaction to emotional and mental tension. I’ve noticed that a lot of my clients think agitation is the same as irritability but these are very different and involve different organs. Irritability doesn’t need a stimulus, you could be on a great holiday or surrounded by people being nice to you and still feel really irritable. This is generated internally and associated with your liver and it is about chi. Agitation is a response to a stimulus and it is connected to your heart. The fire in the heart is flaring up because there is not enough yin or blood to control it. If this is left untreated it can deplete yin and blood further and that develops into more serious heart patterns such as clinical depression or bi-polar. So you want to get on top of agitation fast. Don’t try and treat agitation just with psychology, you need to work with your body and build your blood and yin. For more info on how to do this read Clock On To Health.

The causes for the mental and emotional tension also need to be addressed. These can range from doing too many projects at the same time, to relentless decision-making under pressure. Some scenarios include a pressured CEO, a pressured parent, or a worker overwhelmed by deadlines and the need to constantly prioritise projects. In TCM, we never look at a symptom in isolation, all your organs are connected and the physical and psychological are integrated. Chinese herbal formulas have multiple active ingredients that can tackle complex physical and emotional causes for states such as agitation.